Selective “incompetence” in IRS scandal

posted at 8:41 am on May 15, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

After the report from the Inspector General dropped yesterday in the IRS scandal, some media outlets seized on the analysis within it that incompetence and poor training led agents to target conservative groups for excessive scrutiny and harassment. If so, an analysis by USA Today shows that to be a rather selective form of incompetence. While applications for Tea Party groups and other conservative organizations got held up for years, progressive groups had no such trouble:

In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked.

That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn’t be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months.

In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows.

As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like “Progress” or “Progressive,” the liberal groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.

Reporter Gregory Korte lists three groups that managed to avoid all of the scrutiny applied by the IRS to check to see whether conservative groups would engage at all in the political process. Needless to say, the IRS’ tax-exempt unit didn’t have the same concerns with these three:

• Bus for Progress, a New Jersey non-profit that uses a red, white and blue bus to “drive the progressive change.” According to its website, its mission includes “support (for) progressive politicians with the courage to serve the people’s interests and make tough choices.” It got an IRS approval as a social welfare group in April 2011.

• Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment says it fights against corporate welfare and for increasing the minimum wage. “It would be fair to say we’re on the progressive end of the spectrum,” said executive director Jeff Ordower. He said the group got tax-exempt status in September 2011 in just nine months after “a pretty simple, straightforward process.”

• Progress Florida, granted tax-exempt status in January 2011, is lobbying the Florida Legislature to expand Medicaid under a provision of the Affordable Care Act, one of President Obama’s signature accomplishments. The group did not return phone calls. “We’re busy fighting to build a more progressive Florida and cannot take your call right now,” the group’s voice mail said.

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.

According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval.

Lerner also appears to have broken with the norms of tax-exemption approval by granting retroactive tax-exempt status to Malik Obama’s organization.

The National Legal and Policy Center filed an official complaint with the IRS in May 2011 asking why the foundation was being allowed to solicit tax-deductible contributions when it had not even applied for an IRS determination. In a New York Post article dated May 8, 2011, an officer of the foundation admitted, “We haven’t been able to find someone with the expertise” to apply for tax-exempt status.

Nevertheless, a month later, the Barack H. Obama Foundation had flown through the grueling application process. Lerner granted the organization a 501(c) determination and even gave it a retroactive tax exemption dating back to December 2008.

Well … that seems mighty competent, does it not?

Recall the questions that ABC News discovered that the IRS wanted conservative groups to answer before getting their tax exemption?

“Please provide copies of all your current web pages, including your Blog posts. Please provide copies of all of your newsletters, bulletins, flyers, newsletters or any other media or literature you have disseminated to your members or others. Please provide copies of stories and articles that have been published about you.”

“Do your issue-related advocacy communications compare to the positions of candidates or slates of candidates on these issues with your positions? Provide copies of these communications. What percentage do these constitute of your issue-related advocacy communications?”

“Apart from your responses to the preceding, estimate the percentage of your time and what percentage of your resources you will devote to activities in the 2012 election cycle, in which you will explicitly or implicitly support or oppose a candidate, candidates or slates of candidates, for public office.”

Either we’re dealing with a highly selective incompetence that just so happened to only impact conservative groups for 27 months, or the IRS deliberately chose to apply that scrutiny on only one side of the aisle. The odds of the former being true are, needless to say, so astronomical that we’d be better off buying lottery tickets — and assuming the IRS would miss it if we won the jackpot.

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NOM announced Tuesday that it will sue the IRS for this alleged leak. Under immense political pressure, Attorney General Eric Holder launched a criminal investigation into the IRS’s actions. Congress will conduct ts own investigation.

In early April 2012, NOM published documents which it said showed this leaked confidential information did not come from a “whistleblower” but “came directly from the Internal Revenue Service and was provided to NOM’s political opponents, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).”

Think about this for a moment. The Internal Revenue Service, an agency of our nation’s Executive Branch, under the Department of the Treasury, acting as political watchdogs for a sitting administration, literally clearing a path to Barack Hussein Obama’s re-election in 2012.

Now…hold on to something. The IRS didn’t go after just secular perceived enemies of Obama. They went after the most famous Christian Evangelist on the face of God’s Green Earth: Rev. Billy Graham.

Criminal. Who are these IRS agents? Surely there’s a digital trail leading to individual agents and offices. Subpoena each and every one involved so the American people can see their faces and find out what they think, what their Facebook posts look like and what books they like to read. I’d also like to hear their most personal and private thoughts, particularly about taking a perp walk down to a federal prison.

Criminal. We shouldn’t even need the media’s help to get these guys and make them pay severely on this one.

Because the Tea Party counter-revolutionaries are a clear and present danger to the nation. They are extremely dangerous. We expect them to start perpetrating domestic terrorism any decade now.

While liberal groups are true patriots, who care about the American people and who fully support our brave new United Socialist States of America. Call you local IRS office and report suspected counter-revolutionary activity. Forward, comrades!

Incompetence is if the IRS took forever to grant tax exempt status and asked inappropriate questions with every group. But when the only folks who seemed to have difficult were Tea Party and conservative organizations and that’s juxtaposed with liberal groups reportedly getting the red carpet treatment, this is a systemic abuse of power. And there’s no way a few low level employees just decided to do this on a whim.

Before asking about Billy Graham, let’s look into that namesake non-profit that apparently flew through with zero scrutiny on the name Barack H. Obama. And got post-dated legality for years of tax evasion. Unprecedented.

IMO, what we are witnessing in this country right now is
what Ted C so aptly describes below.

The bottom line with ALL of this trashing of our Laws is
that people such as Mitt Romney NEED to come out forcefully,
and demand accountability…..I, as a citizen have been
contacting my representative, and Senator (1) to demand they
DO something. We,as citizens, RELY on our representation in DC.
If these people are unwilling to demand answers, then we will
get nothing.

I urge every person on this site (who is sane) to contact
the office of Speaker Boehner. He has the power to trigger
the mechanisms to produce accountability.

From Ted:

wanton disregard

these guys don’t care what you think and they are daring you to do something about it. The end state is that you are outraged. That is their goal. To push you past the tipping point. They know you want answers and information and you’ll be outraged if you don’t get it. They know you love your rights and so they’ll trample them in front of your face and smirk with a “Do something about it” look on theirs.

it’s the truth. they are trying to light a fire. They have no conscience.

They’re hoping Congress and the People will be pacified if a few flunkies get in trouble, and take the issue no further. Even if there are ‘firings’, we all know it’ll be little more than a shuffling of staffers among departments, to make them vanish in the crowd. We also know that if anyone does lose a job, the unions will be there to call for arbitration and quietly get those workers reinstated. With back pay, of course. Maybe with interest, too.

What we need to know, as citizens, is just how wide-ranging and deep this scandal goes. The Administration wants to avoid that at all cost, but no one — right or left — should settle for less than the whole kasaaba.

Once again, the MSM is using the meme that President Obama is just a naive cherub surrounded by accidental incompetence. The IRS accidentally selected the President’s opponents for audits, heavy handed scrutiny, and outright intimidation.

The IG’s IRS report implies that rogue special agents in a special unit in the national determinations department headquartered in Cincinnati acted independently…and badly/illegally and apparently with no actual knowledge of Federal Tax laws or IRS procedures (Yet these same agents repeatedly flaunted corrections of procedures)…with no managerial supervision for over two years…in a federal organization famous for being anally retentive in pursuit of compliance to federal tax law?

NOM announced Tuesday that it will sue the IRS for this alleged leak. Under immense political pressure, Attorney General Eric Holder launched a criminal investigation into the IRS’s actions. Congress will conduct ts own investigation.

In early April 2012, NOM published documents which it said showed this leaked confidential information did not come from a “whistleblower” but “came directly from the Internal Revenue Service and was provided to NOM’s political opponents, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).”

dogsoldier on May 15, 2013 at 8:44 AM

Is it too early to conclude that the democratics stole the election of 2012 via IRS leaks?

They used to do it the old-fashioned way, using dead and illegal alien voters. Now it’s both.

I refuse to be pessimistic about this. I think the IRS issue has legs. Not only the hearings and criminal charges but all those victims who have demonstrably had their civil rights infringed by an organization ulitmately run by the rat-eared passerby.

Bus for Progress, a New Jersey non-profit that uses a red, white and blue bus to “drive the progressive change.”

Only a lib could come up with something this lame, and only another lib would grant such a farce tax-exempt status.

In fact I think I will start myself a leftist organization. I’ll call it “Ribs for Progress”, a Minnesota non-profit that uses the grill on my deck to create BBQ ribs for supporting liberal causes. I’ll eat all the meat I want and write everything off.

This gives more significance to those back channel email addresses at EPA. Maybe someone should start looking for those at the IRS and DoJ.

guinneach on May 15, 2013 at 8:53 AM

That’s a no-brainer, and I’d include the White House and State.

Take ALL the email addresses that run through government servers with federal gov addresses, and run them through a filter of real people from HR. Those that don’t match up with real people should prove to be Gold mines of information.

In fact I think I will start myself a leftist organization. I’ll call it “Ribs for Progress”, a Minnesota non-profit that uses the grill on my deck to create BBQ ribs for supporting liberal causes. I’ll eat all the meat I want and write everything off.

Bishop on May 15, 2013 at 9:10 AM

Well, why not? If a female ‘performance artist’ can get a Federal grant to put on stage shows where she gets naked and pours Bosco syrup on herself while quoting lesbian poetry, you should have no problem, either. But I recommend you list the Missus as the head of your organization. It’ll speed things along.

Is it too early to conclude that the democratics stole the election of 2012 via IRS leaks?

They used to do it the old-fashioned way, using dead and illegal alien voters. Now it’s both.

slickwillie2001 on May 15, 2013 at 9:10 AM

I don’t think this allowed them to win in 2012, but it certainly gave them an edge and was obviously highly illegal. The thing is though, if they were willing to break the law in this capacity(not to mention cover up Benghazi and tap the phones of AP reporters), what didn’t they do in order to secure Obama’s reelection?

For those wanting the link regarding Obama’s half brother getting the fast lane for his charity being approved, not to mention back-dated by the IRS head so he could avoid tax-evasion charges…goodness.

Nonsense.
You either have a corrupt IRS being used by political officials and their minions for nefarious, illegal purposes or a largely unsupervised government agency being whimsically (and again, illegally) used by groups of liberal employees to advance their political causes.

Either way, this is an illegal Democrat operation advanced by members of their party. They have used a powerful government agency to stifle and punish honest debate with which they do not agree with politically. That is not only contrary to the principles of liberty, but of all this country stands for.

You either have a corrupt IRS being used by political officials and their minions for nefarious, illegal purposes or a largely unsupervised government agency being whimsically (and again, illegally) used by groups of liberal employees to advance their political causes.

Either way, this is an illegal Democrat operation advanced by members of their party. They have used a powerful government agency to stifle and punish honest debate with which they do not agree with politically. That is not only contrary to the principles of liberty, but of all this country stands for.

This thing will blow wide open if we find out they leaked Romney’s tax records to the Obama campaign. There’s no doubt in my mind they did…just a matter of whether or not there is evidence of it.

changer1701 on May 15, 2013 at 9:16 AM

If it happens and there’s evidence, then forever it will be questioned if Obama stole the election. Maybe it wasn’t a factor, in truth, but the question will remain. Much the same way libs still claim Bush ‘stole’ the 2000 election.

This is the danger of having a community organizer as President. He may not have directly ordered the targeting of TEA groups. He created an environment through his rhetoric and leadership appointments where it is acceptable to think of political opponents as an enemy to be destroyed at all costs including the use of government power to suppress and coerce citizens. How close were/ are we to “patriot affiliated persons” being imprisoned by an out of control agency who thinks they are doing what the President wants?

How long can Hot Air go without mentioning the unprecedented decline in the deficit…..

libfreeordie on May 15, 2013 at 9:19 AM

Ok, libtardordie. Let’s talk about the decline. Here’s an excerpt from an AP article:
One of the reasons for the burst of additional income tax revenues, the budget office says, is that upper-income taxpayers claimed more income late last year in order to avoid paying the higher capital gains tax rates enacted in January.

So basically this was a one-time boost resulting from the impending tax hikes. Unless the economy starts to improve(which ain’t happening), we’ll continue to run massive deficits every year.

Seriously, the word impeachment is being thrown around and I doubt we will ever get there. But, if it looks like a possibility what do you suppose the chances are that we will see full-scale race riots in American cities? Parasites who have benefited greatly these past few years and see the rat-eared passerby as one of their own being taken down by “the man” for being an uppity black.

How long can Hot Air go without mentioning the unprecedented decline in the deficit…..

libfreeordie on May 15, 2013 at 9:19 AM

You mean the CBO thinks we will be a couple billion less insanely over budget as we were last year at this time, and the year before, and…
Still a trillion point two over budget but BIG VICTORY FOR OBAMA ’cause we thought it would be a Trillion point three!!1!

If it happens and there’s evidence, then forever it will be questioned if Obama stole the election. Maybe it wasn’t a factor, in truth, but the question will remain. Much the same way libs still claim Bush ‘stole’ the 2000 election.

Liam on May 15, 2013 at 9:26 AM

I have no doubt. It appeared Romney’s biggest problem was that of being seen (by LIV’s) as ‘out-of-touch’, ‘not like us’, too rich, too good-looking, etc, etc. The information about his perfectly-legal investments with some offshore content hurt him further.

All the REB’s lies about Benghazi set up the Crowley Incident which further damaged the Governor.

No doubt, -the Benghazi coverup, and IRS shenanigans allowed the REB to steal the election.

America has been fundamentally transformed. Afraid to speak out against the government out of fear of being harassed by the government. Willing to give up rights without question due to “national emergency.”

I want a name that is able to rally the masses the way Chick-Fil-A appreciation day spiraled into a massive protest of the left. Remember that? People waiting in line for hours and massive traffic jams- all for a chicken sandwich.

We need something that inspires in massive (peaceful) protests in front of every IRS office in the nation. We need something that results in IRS employees telling people they work for Congress to avoid the shame of what they really do for a living. We need something that puts the brakes on the IRS having anything to do with Obamacare.

That might happen, but I think it depends on how ironclad is the case for impeachment. If too hasty, the House could not only cause civil unrest, but lose the bill in the Senate. Plus, the Left can say the move is ‘revenge because they couldn’t get Clinton’. As well as the usual canned charges of racism, etc.

The case has to be ironclad as possible before a motion to impeach. It has to be so solid that Dems will need, for the good of their Party, to ditch Obama before he totally ruins the brand. The case has to be so airtight that even McCain won’t be able to vote against it.